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A carregar... Mumbai Noirpor Altaf Tyrewala (Editor)
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Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. Esta crítica foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Críticos do LibraryThing. I'm not overly familiar with Indian fiction, though I have read some and I am familiar with the Noir genre. This book of short stories is an interesting mix of corrupt police, crime and death, but the most appealing are those with more than a touch of suspense. The stories are a broad range of styles and subjects as would be expected, and some are more memorable than others, though not necessarily better written. The stories are all well written - the editor has done a fine job of their work in arranging this group - and some have a style that is more, I'd have to say "Indian" than others. By that I mean that they don't follow the usual format that Western noir literature does, consequently there is a different, and interesting flavour. I won't go into each story as I find that sort of review painful to read, suffice to say that, as a group, this is a very book, with the usual mix of stories, some better, some not as good, but all enjoyable. I really enjoyed it! ( )Esta crítica foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Críticos do LibraryThing. It's been a while since I read Mumbai Noir, so I don't have the level of specific memories that an anthology review probably needs, but I remember being frustrated by a number of the stories-- but now all that stick out to me are the ones that I liked. I was more taken by the idea of a set of noir stories set in India before I realized that it is part of a series of books set in different cities that Akashic Books essentially churns out, but it still is set in a part of the world that I honestly don't read much about. Devashish Makhija's "By Two" is the one that I remember the most clearly, about a pair of twins, one of which hides a deadly secret. Editor Tyrewala's "The Watchman" also left an overall positive impression, about a watchman at a housing development who knows a death is coming, as did Namita Devidayal's "The Egg," about a woman in a vegetarian housing situation who just can't take it anymore.Perhaps most intriguing was Ahmed Bunglowala's "Nagpada Blues," one of the few outright detective stories in the book. Apparently the detective (one Shorty Gomes) is from other fiction Bunglowala has published; I'll have to check it out. Most of the weak stories have flitted away, as I said, but Kalpish Ratna's "At Leopold Café" was the most disappointing, in that it had an interesting premise, flitting between the 19th century and the present, reflecting on the changes, but I was completely unable to make sense of it. Esta crítica foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Críticos do LibraryThing. This collection of stories is quite a departure from my normal reading. I selected it because I like to sample the literature of other countries, especially in translation. Never having read anything (other than the Bhagavad Gita! 8^P) translated from an Indian dialect, I went for it. I’m not even sure I had ever given much thought to what the “Noir” genre even was. In his introduction, Altaf Tyrewala, who also contributes a story to the collection, says that noir restrains the writer to “an unflinching gaze at the underbelly, without recourse to sentimentality or forced denouements.” I also didn’t realize that Akashic Books publishes a whole series of city-based noir. I assume that each of them gives as unflinching of a portrait of the subject city as this one does of Mumbai. One of Mumbai’s characteristics, according to Tyrewala, is that “A tragedy in one part of Mumbai barely registers elsewhere. People fall off moving trains, bombs erupt in busy bazaars, lives are made and broken in the city’s daily flux, and thing go on as usual.” I took this book along on a safari in Kenya and Tanzania. A collection of short stories like this was ideal as I only had short periods of time in which to read in the two weeks I was there, although I could probably have read War & Peace on the flights from the west coast of the U.S.A. I didn’t see a Nairobi Noir in the series but from the brief look I got of that city, I’m sure there is plenty to write about. I’m curious to check out Orange County Noir, assuming that is Orange County California, where I currently reside, and Baltimore Noir, as that is my heartland. Now to some of the stories that stuck out for me: In Devashish Makhija’s By Two, two twin brothers work one taxi job. This enables them to work unbelievable hours. It’s all good until Mumbai’s unforgiving nature grinds them up. As Rahim reflects at the very beginning of the story, “…at night Mumbai was a brutalized, heaving whore. She didn’t give a fuck who pissed in her seas. It was during the day that Mumbai creaked and rattled like a desperate machine. It gets pissed off. And then it crunches your balls between it tooth-gear wheels.” Both Smita Harish Jain, in The Body in the Gali, and Soni Faleiro, in Lucky 501, deal with rather frightening episodes of the Dai Nirvan, where men are voluntarily castrated to become hijra, the third sex. In Jerry Pinto’s They, you nervously realize how dangerous it could be to come to the notice of the police, even if you are innocent of whatever it is they are investigating. This book is well worth the quick read that it is. Or search out the Noir title for a city that resonates with you. If they are all as good as this one, you won’t be disappointed. [Reviewed for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program] Esta crítica foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Críticos do LibraryThing. It’s always a challenge to adequately review a short story collection, especially when the stories are each by a different author, because the quality of the stories can vary so widely. That’s why I normally don’t review them. I made an exception for Mumbai Noir because I am intrigued by all things Indian and try to read as much about that country and its people as I can.The stories in Mumbai Noir are definitely focused on the darker side of the city, as the title implies. Some are morality tales and some are just melancholy. Overall, I found them entertaining and enlightening. There were a few stories about hirjas, which are sort of like what Westerners think of as transgendered people but not quite. I enjoyed these stories in particular because the hirja culture is both fascinating and confusing to me and I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about it. There were two stories that I didn’t understand at all – At Leopold Cafe and They. At Leopold Cafe is a Twilight Zone type story that has something to do with a fountain of youth elixir that was confusing to me. It jumped back and forth in time and I couldn’t follow it. They is a detective story about a murder in a gym. I couldn’t follow the detective’s logic as far as how he figured out who the killer was. A lot of the stories reference historical events in India that I don’t have a good knowledge in yet. I was still able to enjoy them but probably would have gotten more out of them if I was more familiar with Indian history. There was a glossary of terms in the back which I appreciated. Most of the unfamiliar words could be found there but not all of them. Overall, I think this is a book worth reading if you like stories about the dark and seedy side of big cities. Esta crítica foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Críticos do LibraryThing. I thought the collection was successful in being an entertaining and immersive look at Mumbai. A few stood out in particularA Suitable Girl by Anne Zaidi: My favorite in the book. You have to work in the first few pages to understand the first person(s) structure, but by the time you realize what is going on things start to click right away. It builds inexorably and keeps you in a growing dread to an ending you can sense but is still very powerful. I will be looking for more of her work. The Romantic Customer by Paromita Vohra: The characters are developed extremely well for such a short story. We get several dark internal and external conflicts without relying too heavily on plot in this tidy and satisfying example of noir. By Two by Devashish Makhija: I got the sense of a fable from this one. You don't see many dark, gritty fables, but if there is one then this is it. Don't ask me what the moral is, I am still thinking about it, which is the great thing about this one. The Body in the Gali by Smita Harish Jain: This one was structured very closely to an American style hard boiled detective story, with the unique stamp of Mumbai's darkness. A nice part of the collection. sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
Pertence a Série
Fiction.
Mystery.
Short Stories.
HTML:"The stories in this noir anthology are as raw and diverse as the city of Mumbai itself, humming with the feel for the city's pulse and patter." ??The National Today Mumbai is like any other Asian city on the rise, with gigantic construction cranes winding atop upcoming skyscrapers and malls. Right-wing violence, failing electricity and water supplies, overcrowding, and the ever-looming threat of terrorist attacks??these are some of the gruesome realities that Mumbai's middle and working classes must deal with every day, while the city's super-rich zip from roof to roof in their private choppers. Abandoned by its wealthy, mistreated by its politicians and administrators, Mumbai continues to thrive primarily because of the helpless resilience of its hardworking, upright citizens. The stories in Mumbai Noir depict the many ways in which the city's ever-present shadowy aspects often force themselves onto the lives of ordinary people. What emerges is the sense of a city that, despite its new name and triumphant tryst with capitalism, is yet to heal from the wounds of the communal riots of the 1990s and from all the subsequent acts of havoc wreaked within its precincts by both local and outside forces. Mumbai Noir features stories by: Annie Zaidi, R. Raj Rao, Abbas Tyrewala, Avtar Singh, Ahmed Bunglowala, Smita Harish Jain, Sonia Faleiro, Altaf Tyrewala, Namita Devidayal, Jerry Pinto, Kalpish Ratna, Riaz Mulla, Paromita Vohra, and Devashish Ma Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumAltaf Tyrewala's book Mumbai Noir was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNenhum(a)Capas populares
Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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